WASHINGTON -- A judge is allowing an Army veteran who says he was imprisoned unjustly and tortured by the U.S. military in Iraq to sue former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld personally for damages.

The veteran's identity is withheld in court filings, but he worked for an American contracting company as a translator for the Marines in the volatile Anbar province before being detained for nine months at Camp Cropper, a U.S. military facility near the Baghdad airport dedicated to holding "high-value" detainees.

The government says he was suspected of helping get classified information to the enemy and helping anti-coalition forces enter Iraq. But he was never charged with a crime and says he never broke the law.

Lawyers for the man, who is in his 50s, say he was preparing to come home to the United States on annual leave when he was abducted by the U.S. military and held without justification while his family knew nothing about his whereabouts or even whether he was still alive.

Secretary of Transportation, Norman Mineta's testimony was omitted from the final 9/11 Commission Report. But David Ray Griffin found it in the May 2003 Commission Staff Report. And it was on C-SPAN, which led it to being posted by many people many times on YouTube and other video sharing sites. Griffin's book, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions & Distortions, was the inspiration for these lyrics, which I later made into a video. Maybe some of you will use it and pass it on!

Cheney’s in the bunker …now we’re under attack (1)
Someone seized our jets... in a terror hijack…
They flew into the Towers with a mighty impact
The Trade Center fell in a total collapse…
Now Bush is in the classroom for a photo-op show…
The story of the goat is what he wants “kids” to know
The day is Nine-Eleven… year Two-Thousand and One
Now who the hell’s attacking us, and what’s to be done?

Chorus:

"Do the orders still stand, sir? Do the orders still stand?
Do the orders still stand, sir? Do the orders still stand?
Do the orders still stand?”

"There are things you regret," he says during an interview Tuesday, the day his memoir Known and Unknown was published, but quickly adds that he also takes "great pride in the structures that the Bush administration put in place that this Obama administration criticized and ran against and now have retained: military commissions and indefinite detention and (the prison at) Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
Is that a sense of vindication he's feeling?
"I suppose that's right," he says, smiling.

In his upcoming memoir "Known And Unknown," the Bush-era Pentagon chief lists some of them: claiming that the U.S. knew the location of Iraqi WMDs, not authorizing more troops after the invasion of Iraq, and not quitting after the Abu Ghraib detainee abuse scandal.

But for the most part, Rumsfeld remains defiantly self-righteous about his tenure as Bush's Defense Secretary -- defending his often-criticized decisions and blaming almost everyone else for mistakes that were made -- in the 800-page book, a copy of which was obtained by The Huffington Post. Notably missing from the book is any mention of Pat Tillman, the football star turned soldier whose death by friendly fire was covered up by the Pentagon.

WASHINGTON -- An American Civil Liberties Union lawyer trying to revive a torture lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and three high-ranking Army officers made no headway in a hearing Thursday before a three-member panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The biggest obstacle facing the ACLU: The full circuit court previously ruled in a similar case that Rumsfeld and others are immune from such suits because they were acting in their capacity as government officials.

Cecillia Wang, an attorney with the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, gamely argued that while the court was precluded by that precedent from actually finding in favor of her plaintiffs, it should still rule on the issue of whether their rights were violated.

Unlike an earlier case which involved non-citizens tortured at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, this case, Ali v. Rumsfeld, was filed on behalf of nine Iraqi and Afghan men subjected to torture and abuse under Rumsfeld's command in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Diane Sawyer will talk to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in his first television interview since 2006 next month. The conversation is slated to begin airing on ABC's "World News" on February 7, with segments also appearing on "Nightline" and "Good Morning America."

The interview will coincide with the release of Rumsfeld's memoir, "Known and Unknown". ABC News reports:

In an ABC News exclusive, Diane Sawyer talks to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in his first television interview since leaving public service in November 2006.
Donald Rumsfeld has been a pivotal figure in recent American history. As Secretary of Defense on 9/11, Rumsfeld played a critical role in the war on terror, including the combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By way of introduction and to present my 9/11 related writings, songs, and videos, I will begin with posting these statements and links as a first blog entry. All of my 9/11 songs are free mp3's at www.last.fm/music/vic+sadot

Bon Courage! Vic Sadot

Vic Sadot is a singer-songwriter and maker of music videos who is based in Berkeley, California. Vic is an active member of the Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance, and is featured on Actors & Artists for 9/11 Truth. http://actorsandartistsfor911truth.com/Q-Z.htm

Vic writes in the tradition of "Broadside, the National Topical Song Magazine" of Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen, and songwriters like Phil Ochs, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, and Bob Dylan. Sadot has produced an entire CD of "9/11 Truth & Justice Songs" available at www.911truth.org

On November 4th, 2009, a year after the election of Barack Obama, artist Shepard Fairey was at the University of Southern California for a conversation entitled “Art, Culture, Politics.” Fairey lent the Obama campaign his artistic design skills by creating the imagery and layout of the “Hope” and “Progress” posters.This iconographical work, which now resides in the Smithsonian, was a crucial visual vehicle in Barack Obama’s mega-cultural ascendancy.

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to the Guantánamo Bay prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for war in Iraq and the broader War on Terror, according to a new document obtained by The Times.

The accusations were made by Lawrence Wilkerson, a top aide to Colin Powell, the former Republican Secretary of State, in a signed declaration to support a lawsuit filed by a Guantánamo detainee. It is the first time that such allegations have been made by a senior member of the Bush Administration.

Former 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer slips up and says a missile hit the Pentagon on 9/11. George W. Bush also slips up and describes explosives in the World Trade Center towers. Donald Rumsfeld slips up as well saying that United 93 was shot down in Pennsylvania.

According to a document obtained by the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on Tuesday March 16, the 9/11 commission was warned on Jan. 6th, 2004 by high-level administration officials to "not cross the line" in the investigation of the events that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001.